Baltimore City College high school students started classes on Monday in a new, temporary location, the University of Baltimore’s midtown campus.
For the next three years, students at the college preparatory school will attend classes at the University of Baltimore (UBalt), while their own campus at 3220 The Alameda undergoes renovations.
This is the first year that UBalt has made its campus available as “swing space” for a local high school that’s under construction. It will bring approximately 1,400 students in grades 9 to 12 to the midtown area, plus teachers and other school staffers.
Under a plan approved by Baltimore’s school board, Baltimore City College (BCC) has arranged to use UBalt’s facilities from now until the summer of 2028, when work on The Alameda campus is scheduled for completion.
Administrators had floated plans to use the Thurgood Marshall Building at 5001 Sinclair Lane as swing space, but that option drew questions because the property isn’t centrally located within the city and commute times would have been unreasonably long for some students. The Sinclair Lane property also needed extensive upgrades.
UBalt President and former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, a 1967 City College graduate who was the quarterback on the school’s state champion football team and also excelled in lacrosse, suggested that the high school move to the university’s campus during the renovation period, and the school board voted 8 to 1 to accept his offer.
One advantage of moving to the UBalt campus, Schmoke said, is that it would expose BCC students to a college-caliber learning environment. One of the university’s buildings is already used by the city’s police department as a training facility, he noted.
Ramping up
The high school is primarily using two of the university’s buildings for classes, the Academic Center at the northwest corner of Charles Street and Mount Royal Avenue, and the William H. Thumel Sr. Business Center, at the southwest corner of the same intersection. The city has made more than $9 million of modifications to the UBalt campus to prepare it for use by the high school students.
According to UBalt Director of Communications Chris Hart, the plan calls for high school students to be in the university buildings during the day and then for UBalt students to take classes there in the evenings.
“BCC starts its day at around 7-7:30 a.m., which is about an hour before the University starts,” Hart said in an email message. “The high school day ends at around 2:30-3 p.m., which is usually a gap period for us between daytime classes and the evening cohort. Evening UBalt classes begin at around 5-5:30 p.m.”
Besides using the academic and business centers for instruction, BCC students will use the lower level of the University’s Learning Commons for physical education classes, and the high school’s offices and services will mostly be located in the academic center, he said.
The high school has about 350 students in each grade. Hart said classes were scheduled to start with freshmen and sophomores attending half-day sessions on Monday, juniors and seniors attending half-day sessions on Tuesday, and ramping up from there.
Part of the change for students, he said, will be getting acclimated to campus and adjusting to new travel times.
“I expect that in the first couple of weeks, with new drop-off/pick-up points for students located around campus, there may be some slowdowns early in the morning and mid-afternoon,” he said in his message. “We’re ready for that, and we’ve let the University community know to build in a little extra time for their commutes.”
‘Transportation rich’
UBalt’s location “is called ‘transportation rich’ with light rail, Metro, MTA, Circulator, and bus lanes all converging on campus or nearby, and most City College students are expected to take public transportation,” Hart added. “MTA has been supportive by adding additional buses on existing routes during specific times of day.”
In recent days, Hart said he’s seen BCC students and their parents walking around the campus and familiarizing themselves with its different buildings.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s going to be a pretty lively place, especially in those first few weeks.”
He said he’s glad that UBalt could be part of the solution.
“My favorite part of this is demonstrating to Baltimore that local institutions can work together to overcome issues,” he said. “That’s been our stance from the beginning and…it’s still intact.”
